"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
Seeds and Fertile Ground
The idea began as little more than a pipe dream. One of my contemporaries post-undergrad, a writer for the local news journal, shared with me with a fantasy of his: gather a group of like minded fold, and convert an old school out west into a community. His interest in the matter even went so far as to locate on eBay a
variety of schools set up for auction by rural towns in the plains states; a downtown three-story in Kansas, a tucked away archive in Oklahoma. He spoke fondly of pooling our resources to make it happen; the cost itself was within reason if enough bodies were to back it. Little did he know the seed his dream would plant in me.
It took years to even germinate. Apathy towards change wrapped itself around me after college, a bleak time of unused potential. However, somewhere deep inside me that dream took root, spurning my desire for change, not just in my life, but in the world around me. After socializing and building up a support group, social innovators who know that action is the first step to change; we found where the idea could flourish. We found our school.
Located in the agricultural hot-spot of Carmen, Oklahoma, the school had everything we needed. Classrooms, established infrastructure capable of 'hacking', even a Vocational Agricultural building. It would take almost a decade to accomplish; but in the end we prevailed. The school has no age restrictions, although we do recommend minor's be accompanies by an adult or supervisor. We offer a sort of open-source Vocational Learning. The concept is to shift away from rigid structural education, which tends to harm creativity and inspiration; and instead focus on connecting people to ideas, because if we can help people to think in and care about real world situations then we can help fight off ignorance of our predecessors.
The cornerstone of our educational system is our publishing library. Through the advent of such groundbreaking companies as Connexions (1) during the early 21st century, the vast knowledge base that we once contained in a four story building now can be stored in a server the size of a refrigerator. With these materials any form of curriculum can be tailored to the prospective student, support this with the free-flow knowledge of the internet and you are capable of providing real-time learning for real-world problems. If the student wants to learn about camels, we can link up with veterinary schools in Cairo; if they are curious about cuttlefish we talk to Marine Biologists in Melbourne.
Maintenance and care for the facilities are handled on site through course work. The electrical infrastructure consists of an integrated flat-parabolic solar set up integrated with a school run wind farm; thus providing the necessary power to run the facility, the surplus of which is provided to local establishments as a communal courtesy. In our curriculum knowing the construction of a battery is just as important as blogging; knowing how to harness wind energy is as encouraged as making friends in Japan. Inspired by such great rural inventors like Dominic Wanjihias, inventor of the same flat-parabolic system appropriated by the school, every curriculum includes basic electrical engineering and IT readiness platforms. These are based strongly in the need to understand the infrastructure on which we are to build a decentralized sustainable future. Dominic's words were used as inspiration for the facility, that we all be "inventor[s] of appropriate technology, environmentally friendly gadgets applicable to … the empowerment of rural people.” (2)
The school itself, a dream conceived a decade prior, represents more than ten years of progress. It represents a paradigm shift, a reestablishment of education. A curriculum where progress is determined by individual growth, not statistical averages. Where expectations are met on individual levels, and not determined by test scores. The knowledge and willingness to act upon ones own interests. These are the opportunities that education should provide, It is not just culmination of my dreams that I see in the school, but those of the next genaeration as well.
(1) - http://cnx.org
(2) - http://makerfaireafrica.com/2009/08/01/maker-profile-dominic-wanjihia/
variety of schools set up for auction by rural towns in the plains states; a downtown three-story in Kansas, a tucked away archive in Oklahoma. He spoke fondly of pooling our resources to make it happen; the cost itself was within reason if enough bodies were to back it. Little did he know the seed his dream would plant in me.
It took years to even germinate. Apathy towards change wrapped itself around me after college, a bleak time of unused potential. However, somewhere deep inside me that dream took root, spurning my desire for change, not just in my life, but in the world around me. After socializing and building up a support group, social innovators who know that action is the first step to change; we found where the idea could flourish. We found our school.
Located in the agricultural hot-spot of Carmen, Oklahoma, the school had everything we needed. Classrooms, established infrastructure capable of 'hacking', even a Vocational Agricultural building. It would take almost a decade to accomplish; but in the end we prevailed. The school has no age restrictions, although we do recommend minor's be accompanies by an adult or supervisor. We offer a sort of open-source Vocational Learning. The concept is to shift away from rigid structural education, which tends to harm creativity and inspiration; and instead focus on connecting people to ideas, because if we can help people to think in and care about real world situations then we can help fight off ignorance of our predecessors.
The cornerstone of our educational system is our publishing library. Through the advent of such groundbreaking companies as Connexions (1) during the early 21st century, the vast knowledge base that we once contained in a four story building now can be stored in a server the size of a refrigerator. With these materials any form of curriculum can be tailored to the prospective student, support this with the free-flow knowledge of the internet and you are capable of providing real-time learning for real-world problems. If the student wants to learn about camels, we can link up with veterinary schools in Cairo; if they are curious about cuttlefish we talk to Marine Biologists in Melbourne.
Maintenance and care for the facilities are handled on site through course work. The electrical infrastructure consists of an integrated flat-parabolic solar set up integrated with a school run wind farm; thus providing the necessary power to run the facility, the surplus of which is provided to local establishments as a communal courtesy. In our curriculum knowing the construction of a battery is just as important as blogging; knowing how to harness wind energy is as encouraged as making friends in Japan. Inspired by such great rural inventors like Dominic Wanjihias, inventor of the same flat-parabolic system appropriated by the school, every curriculum includes basic electrical engineering and IT readiness platforms. These are based strongly in the need to understand the infrastructure on which we are to build a decentralized sustainable future. Dominic's words were used as inspiration for the facility, that we all be "inventor[s] of appropriate technology, environmentally friendly gadgets applicable to … the empowerment of rural people.” (2)
The school itself, a dream conceived a decade prior, represents more than ten years of progress. It represents a paradigm shift, a reestablishment of education. A curriculum where progress is determined by individual growth, not statistical averages. Where expectations are met on individual levels, and not determined by test scores. The knowledge and willingness to act upon ones own interests. These are the opportunities that education should provide, It is not just culmination of my dreams that I see in the school, but those of the next genaeration as well.
(1) - http://cnx.org
(2) - http://makerfaireafrica.com/2009/08/01/maker-profile-dominic-wanjihia/
Views: 18
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Comment by Michael Davidson on March 27, 2010 at 5:26am
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Loved it man. My only advice would be to rethink how you look at your years after college. Were you truly apathetic, or were you merely trying to decide for yourself what it was you wanted from life? Either way, let me know when I can pick up an application for a teaching position at your school!
-wook
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